The FSO Safer tanker moored off the coast of Yemen is a “ticking time bomb” due to risks of toxic gas and oil leaks, a maritime infrastructure expert spearheading a rescue mission has told The National.
The vessel, which holds more than 1.1 million barrels of Marib light crude oil, has prompted warnings from industry and environmental experts about the potential consequences of a spill in a region already rocked by unrest.
Donations on Thursday poured into a UN fund aimed at averting a catastrophe stemming from the quickly disintegrating ship in the Red Sea.
The conference raised more than £6 million, including a UK contribution of £2.5 million. This followed the £80 million already pledged by more than 20 other countries and a range of private sector donors.
A statement from the UK government said that the boost in funds would allow the UN to start the operation to transfer the oil on to a replacement vessel and resolve the immediate threat.
Minister for Development Andrew Mitchell said the UK had brought its total commitment to £8 million.
“This conference has made vital progress towards avoiding an environmental, economic and humanitarian catastrophe on a massive scale,” he said afterwards.
The conference welcomed a mix of pledges from governments and private firms as the UN aims to fund the delicate project that will transfer the oil safely from the FSO Safer to another vessel.
Oil companies Octavia Energy and its subsidiary, Calvalley Petroleum, announced a joint donation of £238,000 towards the mission, set to begin in the coming weeks.
The tanker has been moored 8km off Yemen’s coast since 2018, when offloading was halted by the conflict between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed government.
MIT Salvage, a subsidiary of Dutch maritime services company Boskalis, last month signed an agreement with the UN Development Programme to remove the oil from the ship.
Peter Berdowski, chief executive of Boskalis, told The National the sensitivities and challenges of the operation are unique due to local factors.
“It’s a ticking time bomb in the Red Sea,” he said. “The Safer is currently controlled by the Houthis. They realise it’s a very important piece in a bigger jigsaw. It has trading and export value.
“It’s a very tricky operation because of the location. We need to make sure that all parties involved [abide by the agreement] … and all the frogs remain in the basket.
“If I was not fully confident we would not be sending our people in.”
The Houthis gave assurances to the UN that missiles will not be pointed or fired at the vessel during the rescue mission, he said.
Mr Berdowski said he expects the inspection, emptying, cleaning and removal of the ship to last up to six weeks.
“It has not been properly inspected for years,” he explained.
“It has cracks and is in a deplorable state. The exact situation it is in is unknown. We will have to make sure that there are no toxic gasses leaking. The removal of potential toxic gasses will take two weeks.
“Then we will pump the oil out into a new tanker. We will clean the tanks next with chemicals and water. Then she will be unhooked and can be towed away. We expect the total operation to last four to six weeks.”
One of Boskalis’s vessels is due to arrive in Djibouti later this month before the mission begins.
The company was involved in freeing the Ever Given container ship from the Suez Canal in 2021, when it blocked the major trading route for six days.
Simon Boxall, a lecturer at the University of Southampton’s school of ocean and earth science, told The National that any gas or oil leaks would wreak havoc on the environment.
The urgency of the rescue cannot be understated, he added.
“This needs to be done very soon,” he said. “It’s got to a stage where we are looking at a [potentially] huge environmental disaster.
“A large amount of oil is in a relative shallow and closed environment.
“The dangers are enormous. Fishing would be shut down for months and even years.”
The cost of a clean-up of an oil spill of the magnitude possible from FSO Safer has been estimated to be as high as £16 billion.
UAE-based production company the Hayel Saeed Anam Group was among those urging the private sector to donate cash to rescue the ship and avert a disaster.
Nabil Hayel Saeed Anam, HSA’s managing director for the Yemen region, said he and his team were “gravely concerned” over a potential oil spill, warning it would have a “disastrous impact on our home market of Yemen”.
It would also pour fuel on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and exacerbate food insecurity, he added.
“A spill would also be a major humanitarian and ecological catastrophe,” he said.
“A spill would affect communities across the whole of the Red Sea region that rely on trade and economic activity in the area for their livelihoods, including Sudan, which is already facing a crisis of its own.”
Mr Anam called on decision-makers in the international private sector to “urgently step forward and contribute to the recovery effort”.
“The time to act is now,” he said.
Darran Lucas, spokesman for Octavia Energy and Calvalley Petroleum, said the donation “illustrates our commitment to Yemen and the Yemeni people”.
“The two companies continue to invest heavily in the local economy, creating jobs and helping the community through an incredibly difficult period,” he said.
“We encourage other companies from the private sector to also pledge donations for the FSO Safer salvage operation.”
FIXTURES
All times UAE ( 4 GMT)
Friday
Saint-Etienne v Montpellier (10.45pm)
Saturday
Monaco v Caen (7pm)
Amiens v Bordeaux (10pm)
Angers v Toulouse (10pm)
Metz v Dijon (10pm)
Nantes v Guingamp (10pm)
Rennes v Lille (10pm)
Sunday
Nice v Strasbourg (5pm)
Troyes v Lyon (7pm)
Marseille v Paris Saint-Germain (11pm)
White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen
Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide
Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
RedCrow Intelligence Company Profile
Started: 2016
Founders: Hussein Nasser Eddin, Laila Akel, Tayeb Akel
Based: Ramallah, Palestine
Sector: Technology, Security
# of staff: 13
Investment: $745,000
Investors: Palestine’s Ibtikar Fund, Abu Dhabi’s Gothams and angel investors
On racial profiling at airports
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
The specS: 2018 Toyota Camry
Price: base / as tested: Dh91,000 / Dh114,000
Engine: 3.5-litre V6
Gearbox: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 298hp @ 6,600rpm
Torque: 356Nm @ 4,700rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 7.0L / 100km
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Sideup%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202019%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Waleed%20Rashed%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Cairo%2C%20Egypt%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20technology%2C%20e-commerce%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunds%20raised%20so%20far%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%241.2%20million%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Launch%20Africa%20VC%2C%20500%20Global%2C%20Riyadh%20Angels%2C%20Alex%20Angels%2C%20Al%20Tuwaijri%20Fund%20and%20Saudi%20angel%20investor%20Faisal%20Al%20Abdulsalam%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
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Stars: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone
Four out of five stars
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
MATCH INFO
Manchester United 1 (Fernandes pen 2') Tottenham Hotspur 6 (Ndombele 4', Son 7' & 37' Kane (30' & pen 79, Aurier 51')
Man of the match Son Heung-min (Tottenham)
<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html" charset="UTF-8" /></head><body><!--PSTYLE=* Labels%3aFH Label 18 Sport--><p>Beach soccer</p><!--PSTYLE=BY Byline--><p>Amith Passela</p><p /></body></html>
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From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
Company profile
Name: Thndr
Started: October 2020
Founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: pre-seed of $800,000
Funding stage: series A; $20 million
Investors: Tiger Global, Beco Capital, Prosus Ventures, Y Combinator, Global Ventures, Abdul Latif Jameel, Endure Capital, 4DX Ventures, Plus VC, Rabacap and MSA Capital
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbocharged and three electric motors
Power: Combined output 920hp
Torque: 730Nm at 4,000-7,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel consumption: 11.2L/100km
On sale: Now, deliveries expected later in 2025
Price: expected to start at Dh1,432,000
What is blockchain?
Blockchain is a form of distributed ledger technology, a digital system in which data is recorded across multiple places at the same time. Unlike traditional databases, DLTs have no central administrator or centralised data storage. They are transparent because the data is visible and, because they are automatically replicated and impossible to be tampered with, they are secure.
The main difference between blockchain and other forms of DLT is the way data is stored as ‘blocks’ – new transactions are added to the existing ‘chain’ of past transactions, hence the name ‘blockchain’. It is impossible to delete or modify information on the chain due to the replication of blocks across various locations.
Blockchain is mostly associated with cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Due to the inability to tamper with transactions, advocates say this makes the currency more secure and safer than traditional systems. It is maintained by a network of people referred to as ‘miners’, who receive rewards for solving complex mathematical equations that enable transactions to go through.
However, one of the major problems that has come to light has been the presence of illicit material buried in the Bitcoin blockchain, linking it to the dark web.
Other blockchain platforms can offer things like smart contracts, which are automatically implemented when specific conditions from all interested parties are reached, cutting the time involved and the risk of mistakes. Another use could be storing medical records, as patients can be confident their information cannot be changed. The technology can also be used in supply chains, voting and has the potential to used for storing property records.
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How to apply for a drone permit
- Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
- Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
- Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
- Submit their request
What are the regulations?
- Fly it within visual line of sight
- Never over populated areas
- Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
- Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
- Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
- Should have a live feed of the drone flight
- Drones must weigh 5 kg or less
All or Nothing
Amazon Prime
Four stars
It's Monty Python's Crashing Rocket Circus
To the theme tune of the famous zany British comedy TV show, SpaceX has shown exactly what can go wrong when you try to land a rocket.
The two minute video posted on YouTube is a compilation of crashes and explosion as the company, created by billionaire Elon Musk, refined the technique of reusable space flight.
SpaceX is able to land its rockets on land once they have completed the first stage of their mission, and is able to resuse them multiple times - a first for space flight.
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